About Me

When not nosing, tasting, drinking and reading about malt whisky, I own one of Israel's premiere boutique coaching practices, specializing in small businesses and executive teams.
Trained in the law, I was an international law attorney and took part in Israel's peace negotiations with the Palestinians, as well as representing my country at the UN for parts of the negotiations on the implementation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Later I was appointed to the military bench.
My favorite thing, other than whisky, is teaching.
You can contact me through the social media buttons above or by email: michael(at)maltandoak.com, replacing the (at) with an @.

Statement of Integrity and Guidelines

Malt and Oak is an independent whisky blog, offering my own views, opinions and news from the world of malt whisky.
These are my guidelines:

1. All whisky reviews published are of whiskies I have personally tasted and noted. Guest bloggers only write about their own personal tastings.

2. With the exception of official whisky samples, I accept no consideration whatsoever from any distillery, bottler, distributor, drink company or store for my opinions.

3. I maintain strict impartiality and objectivity in tasting all whiskies, not least when tasting official samples. Any review of official whisky samples sent to me will be so noted in the post.

4. I will accept invitations to tastings, events and official visits, and full disclosure will be made on any tasting notes and articles resulting from these events or visits.

5. Any sample received over 30 ml in volume is shared with fellow whisky bloggers. In any event, no sample larger than 100 ml will be accepted.

6. No advertisements promoting specific brands will be accepted.

7. I will answer any inquiry by my readers as quickly and as fully as possible.

8. Should I give a link purchase the reviewed whisky, it will be given free of any commercial interest. The link given will always point to cheapest selling price I found on the web. No commission is paid, nor any other consideration given, for such link.

9. As of July 2017, I serve as Douglas Laing’s Israel brand ambassasdor. As such, I will obviously not be posting reviews of Douglas Laing products.

Archive For The “Travel Retail” Category

Balvenie’s travel retail range holds the 12, 16 and 25. This range is matured in refill ex bourbon, first fill ex bourbon casks and first fill Oloroso sherry casks. I reviewed the Balvenie 25 year old, and was not blown away, if I put it mildly, and found it somewhat strange. 2017 saw the coming…

Laphroaig shines beautifully once you get it beyond the entry levels (Select, Four Oak, QA Cask and even the much loved regular 10 year old). So yes, it’s really easy to say that at at a higher ABV whisky is good, and frankly, that’s not really saying much and it isn’t really a whisky critique….

William Grant and Sons has a brilliant marketing department. Having two widely sold single malt distilleries in Speyside (I’m leaving Kininvie out of this post, as it’s really a blender for Grant’s), they have each catering to a different demographic. While Balvenie caters to the whisky anorak crowd, and does so successfully – despite my…

Yes, I know….Yet another travel retail NAS expression being pushed at us by whisky companies’ marketing departments in a never-ending procession of boring, indistinct, and uninspired expressions. Yet, even within such a plethora of blandness, they are bound to be some expressions that are worth your time and effort and I’m happy to report that I’ve…

This post is a quick followup on our story relating to the absolutely crazy pricing of two 1999 single cask Glen Garioch bottles at last month’s auction. If you didn’t yet, read ‘In Whisky, Is Crazy the New Normal?‘ and then come back here. The short of it is that two Glen Garioch 12 year…